Skyrim - What I Hate Most

The CRPG Addict writes about What I Hate Most about Skyrim, with a full (and presumably positive based on other comments) review due soon. Unkillable NPCs and un-refusable quests top his list:

The kind of hand-holding evidenced by un-killable NPCs and un-droppable items drives me mad. Morrowind had neither of these "features" and did fine. If you killed someone that broke the main quest, you got a warning, but otherwise you could backstab anyone that offended your sense of morality. Even Oblivion, though it had a few un-killable NPCs, just told you that the quest was over because some key person had died. It didn't try to protect everyone in the game who might some day give you 150 gold pieces. (My favorite approach was in Baldur's Gate, where if you killed a crucial NPC, he'd be replaced in all his future scenes by "Biff the Understudy.") On my current Skyrim playthrough, I got so mad at the citizens of Markarth that I decided to kill every one of them (I partly justified it because I was a vampire at the time) and found that half of them just wouldn't perish, no matter how long I stood over them, swinging my blade, screaming "Why…won't…you…die?!"

Heh. I had a similar experience. Decided I'd save a lot of Skyrim lives by stopping the war. So I paid a visit to Ulrich Stormcloak and pulled my enchanted swords. Chop chop slash slash… and… yup, "Why…won't…you…die?!".

Tell you another thing. There might be lots of protected characters in Skyrim, but it turns out my Dragonborn PC isn't one of them. One thing and one thing only allowed my beloved PC to persevere under the dire circumstances I had created. You guessed it, the modern miracle of the "Save Game".

What the writer describes is the reason New Vegas was more impressive to me than Skyrim. Being able to complete most quests in the way you want beats having endless amounts of them.

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I'd just like to interject here and point out that I'm not going to say anything to spoil the mood, Chief. I'll just float here and watch. Don't mind me, just sitting here, floating and watching, that's me.

Read the article and agree 100%. The sluggish controls, handholding, and outright LAXY quest design really ruined large parts of the game for me. It was like I had no choice but to do the quest Bethesda's way, or do my best to ignore it as my quest log filled up with horrible quests.

Being railroaded with 0 ability to shape the outcome of the quests is horrible game design. Quests are further ruined with the complete lack of ANY moral system, which has the effect of morphing every quest into a sociopathic joyride free of any real consequences. Compounding these issues, your character can SOMEHOW become head of every guild in the game, removing any sense of attachment or loyalty to their organization, causing each guild to become nothing more than a collection of quest givers.

All of this conspires to create a situation where I no longer cared about either the world or my character, or doing any of the bland quests which I was prevented from
solving in any but Bethesda approved ways.

Due to these issues above, which have gotten worse since Oblivion, never again will I pay full price for a Bethesda developed game. Additionally, I sure as hell won't buy until I comb through the reviews and download the mods that do Bethesda's work for them.

Now I'm not saying Skyrim is a bad game, it's pretty and can be fun if you just think of it as a really big FPS, but it is a bad RPG, especially if you compared it to Morrowwind.

Last edited by Mr Delightful; January 7th, 2012 at 11:32.
Reason: Bad typos at end

I don't like not being able to drop quest items AFTER the quest is completed!! I struggle with weight limitations already and then I have heaps of items with weight I can't get rid of; that's pathetic. I won't mention everyone's favourite; the companion blocking the doorway!!

Originally Posted by Kostaz
What the writer describes is the reason New Vegas was more impressive to me than Skyrim. Being able to complete most quests in the way you want beats having endless amounts of them.

New Vegas made a mockery of "choice and consequence" for me. In almost all cases all choosing one way to solve a quest vs another did was close off a dialogue tree or two. Nothing was added, but something was removed upon completion of quests. There are a couple exceptions like getting the Vikki & Vance casino to open but in that case it happened if you completed the previous quest, no matter how you completed it. Net effect is that your "choices" have zero impact on the game world. They have an impact on you, the player. My last playthrough I found myself leaving quests open indefinitely just because I knew that all that was going to happen is I'd be awarded a little exp and I'd lose access to a vendor, a faction, a doctor, or something else like that. Some C&C where it's more beneficial to not make a choice 90% of the time…

Originally Posted by Corwin
I don't like not being able to drop quest items AFTER the quest is completed!! I struggle with weight limitations already and then I have heaps of items with weight I can't get rid of; that's pathetic.

That's why the release the game tools. You don't really expect the designers to do wrap up all the loose ends in with script commands do you? It's pretty obvious they don't even playtest their stuff long enough to even spot things that are obviously broken. You think they're going to invest the time to unflag quest items upon quest completion? Cut them some slack! Just because the average player can find 100 bugs and fix them in a few hours doesn't mean a poor company like Bethesda can do the same thing with dozens of designers and QA testers, does it? That's not their job anyway, is it?

Originally Posted by Corwin
I won't mention everyone's favourite; the companion blocking the doorway!!

Bethesda games were never meant to have companions. They shoehorned them in due to player whining. They've never worked well for anything except hauling your crap. Best to park them someplace and then go get them when you're ready to travel someplace else.

As for the essential NPCs that's mainly because their lifelike sandbox and travel scripts end up with NPCs being randomly killed with alarming predictability. Anyone besides me notice that in Goodsprings critters spawn in the middle of town every 3 days and will eventually kill everyone in town except Chet, Ringo, and Doc Mitchell (all 3 of which just sandbox indoors, and are thus spared)? I doubt most people even are aware of how much of Fallout New Vegas they missed just because quest NPCs got killed before they got to them.

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
Now I'm not say Skyrim is not a bad game, it's pretty and can be fun if you just think of it as a really big FPS, but it is a bad RPG, especially if you compared it to Morrowwind.

All Bethesda games since Arena were meant as a freeform persistent FPS. I despised Morrowind for that reason. To this day I can't recall a damn thing about Morrowind's story. All I can recall is the ridiculous amount of time I spent exploiting game engine flaws to steal or kill/loot/steal equipment that was far better than I should have had. I think I could still do that run to the ruins to get a full set of Orc Armor and an Orc Battleaxe 15 minutes into the game with my eyes closed. Morrowind was the ultimate "there's no real story here for you, this is just fantasy combat sim" game and I'm baffled by your claim that it's not a bad RPG. Oblivion was a better RPG than Morrowind in every conceivable way. Therefore, I'm going to assume that you don't actually like RPGs and the reason you think more highly of Morrowind than Oblivion or Skyrim is that Morrowind didn't have all that annoying RPG stuff getting between you and your openworld fantasy FPS.

Originally Posted by Corwin
I don't like not being able to drop quest items AFTER the quest is completed!! I struggle with weight limitations already and then I have heaps of items with weight I can't get rid of; that's pathetic.

I could be wrong about this, but I'm pretty sure that even though quest items say they have a certain weight, they don't actually add to the weight of your inventory. I think I tested this early in the game with the "Dragon Stone" item (I wasn't too excited about the prospects of being stuck with a 30 pound item!), and I'm fairly certain that it actually weighed "nothing" in my inventory despite saying otherwise in its description.

Originally Posted by CraigCWB
Therefore, I'm going to assume that you don't actually like RPGs and the reason you think more highly of Morrowind than Oblivion or Skyrim is that Morrowind didn't have all that annoying RPG stuff getting between you and your openworld fantasy FPS.

Kind of a sweeping generalization don't ya think? I prefer Morrowind to Oblivion, so I don't like RPGs? Anyway, Morrowind was far superior to Oblivion as an RPG, for 3 main reasons off the top of my head.

1) It didn't have to voice act the whole damn thing, thus it could provide actual story and backround information for quests and the actions characters took. If you can't remember anything about Morrowind's story, then thats probably becuase you didn't read your text.

2) Morrowind didn't hold your hand the whole game like Oblivion did. Remember the magical compass that points exactly where you need to go for each leg of a quest? Morrowind didn't spoon feed everything to you; you would actually question the npcs to determine your next destination, which made you feel like part of the world.

3) It didn't have immortal characters. Morrowind actually allowed you to make roleplaying decisions concerning the life/death of every character in the game. A certain town upset you, erradicate it (GL doing that in Oblivion or Skyrim).

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
Being railroaded with 0 ability to shape the outcome of the quests is horrible game design. Quests are further ruined with the complete lack of ANY moral system,

While this comment is perhaps true of the main storyline, most of the sidequests to infact allow multiple ways to resolve them. A particulary good example of this would be the murders in Windhelm, if you follow the compass and do things by the numbers you can end up convicting and sending the wrong guy to prison. Almost all the daedric quests also allow you to make moral calls on whether you do them or not - for example for namirra you can either butcher the priest or launch a suprise attack on the feasters. Can you give an example of a particular one you thought was badly done?

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
3) It didn't have immortal characters. Morrowind actually allowed you to make roleplaying decisions concerning the life/death of every character in the game. A certain town upset you, erradicate it (GL doing that in Oblivion or Skyrim).

This is the one issue I agree with and I hope it does get addressed. In some cases it also seems certain npcs are marked as unkillable when they certainly should be. Morrowinds alert box approach could easily have been used.

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
Kind of a sweeping generalization don't ya think? I prefer Morrowind to Oblivion, so I don't like RPGs?

I used your own stated criteria for why you thought Skyrim and Oblivion were worse than Morrowind to come to that conclusion. Your claims were obvious BS and therefore I assume you don't use anything like the same definition of "RPG" that actual RPG fans use.

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
Anyway, Morrowind was far superior to Oblivion as an RPG, for 3 main reasons off the top of my head.

Can't wait to peruse this

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
1) It didn't have to voice act the whole damn thing, thus it could provide actual story and backround information for quests and the actions characters took. If you can't remember anything about Morrowind's story, then thats probably becuase you didn't read your text.

You mean all the irrelevant fluff in the books? lol. I actually did read that, and I can remember thinking I could write more interesting "background" for the game world myself. A couple of them has some ties ins to sidequests but most of them were just "isn't this a fascinating setting!?" historical references that had nothing at all to do with the plot. Again, this seems like evidence you are more interested in the simulation of a realistic environment than you are in roleplaying games.

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
2) Morrowind didn't hold your hand the whole game like Oblivion did. Remember the magical compass that points exactly where you need to go for each leg of a quest? Morrowind didn't spoon feed everything to you; you would actually question the npcs to determine your next destination, which made you feel like part of the world.

Well, I don't like that stuff either and I don't even like the journal entries with detailed instructions but what's this got to do with roleplaying games? I suspect we don't like it for the same reasons - it's not realistic. It blows the suspension of disbelief. But as far as Morrowind "not holding your hand" well, no shit. Hold your hand while you do what, exactly? Wander around aimlessly looking for cool stuff to explore? That takes us right back to the realistic environment simulator.

Originally Posted by Mr Delightful
3) It didn't have immortal characters. Morrowind actually allowed you to make roleplaying decisions concerning the life/death of every character in the game. A certain town upset you, erradicate it (GL doing that in Oblivion or Skyrim).

Oh, that's rich. Deciding whether you want to be a cyber psychopath and randomly kill every hapless NPC you encounter is near the top of your list for whether or not something qualifies as a roleplaying game. Using that definition most the best RPGs that were ever made are epic fail as RPGs.

All you've managed to convince me of is that my initial assessment of your taste in games was correct. You like action games that have a persistent open world setting so instead of a linear mission structure, and if they have an RPG wrapper to make the environment more realistic without getting in the way of your digital badassery so much the better.

Originally Posted by CraigCWB
To this day I can't recall a damn thing about Morrowind's story. All I can recall is the ridiculous amount of time I spent exploiting game engine flaws to steal or kill/loot/steal equipment that was far better than I should have had.

Morrowind had a rather good story, if you bothered to pay attention to it. Obviously you were busy exploiting game mechanics and killing/looting/stealing instead. Which is fine. Every game in the Elder Scrolls series has been easy to exploit. Which, again, is fine. If you like powergaming and maxing out your character and equipment, go ahead. Just don't complain as if that's all the game is about.

Originally Posted by tomasp3n
If you ask me I'd say BG, Planescape Torment, Wizardry 8 and…Morrowind. I just wonder what games you consider to be RPG's, and why your opinion is more correct than Mr. Delightfuls?

Sure, I'd go with Baldur's Gate (2 more than 1 but both were good) and Torment. The Wizardry games were good but they actually lost me at 7. And 8 year break is far too long and it wasn't even done by the same people. from the time period you're talking about, I'd add Fallout 1 & 2 to my "best" list, and possibly Might & Magic 6 (though they also had a problem with a very long break and M&M 6 felt obsolete to me though it was still fun). I'd even include Jagged Alliance 2 as one of the best RPGs from that time period. From earlier than that I'd go with the Darksun games kinda - they came out during the RPG drought and weren't as shit as most other RPGs then - and before that Wizardry, Ultima (series), Eye of the Beholder, Sentinel Worlds, Ultima Underworld and System Shock, Betrayal at Krondor, the Arkania games (pretty mediocre at the time but lots better than more recent crap) and many others I can't recall off the top of my head. Arena in 1992 or 1993 (forgot when it came out) left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to Bethesda that I've never completely gotten rid of.

I wouldn't put any Bethesda game on the list, as I always despised them though I played their games anyway because I played all the RPGs back then. Weird thing is, Bethesda's games are the RPGs I like best these days. However, they aren't due any credit for that. It's more of a case of every other maker of RPGs either vanishing or selling out their fanbase to chase the lowest common denominator.

Anyway, I just started Skyrim after all this discussion. Seems to me (so far) it has much more of a Morrowind "vibe" than an Oblivion one, so I really don't get what people are complaining about.

To actually say something on topic: What I hate the most is the user interface. It's a crime against humanity. It's so bad it may cause me to give up on this game. Maybe I'll be able to get used to it?

Originally Posted by Mr Smiley
Morrowind had a rather good story, if you bothered to pay attention to it. Obviously you were busy exploiting game mechanics and killing/looting/stealing instead. Which is fine. Every game in the Elder Scrolls series has been easy to exploit. Which, again, is fine. If you like powergaming and maxing out your character and equipment, go ahead. Just don't complain as if that's all the game is about.

And if you like to pretend there's a plotline when there really isn't, that's fine too

Why do you think Bethesda's games are always so easy to exploit? Any ideas?